Facing a deepening conflict with the United States, Berlin is massively upgrading its military capacity to enable Germany to use its armed forces to pursue its economic and geo-strategic interests around the world. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen made this clear on Monday at the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) conference in Berlin: here.

Mossadegh was replaced by the subservient Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who, according to Amnesty International, would compile one of the worst human rights violations on record. None of that mattered so long as the US and its new junior partner Britain had control over Iran’s oil supplies.

In August 1962, president John F Kennedy wrote to the Shah: “The United States greatly appreciates the highly important strategic location of Iran” advising him to be “vigilant against the pressures of international communism.”

The MoD, the arms deal and a 30-year-old bill for £400m. In the 1970s Iran paid Britain for thousands of tanks, but when the Shah fell they were sold on to [Saddam Hussein‘s] Iraq. Now Tehran wants its money back: here.

In April 1985, prime minister Thatcher saw Suharto during a state visit to Indonesia, saying that she and the dictator “have a close identity of view on so many things,” and describing him elsewhere as “one of our very best and most valuable friends.”

European nations are scrambling to save the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran, one day after President Trump announced he would pull the United States out of the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. The 2015 agreement was worked out by the United States, five other world powers and Iran. Former President Obama described Trump’s decision to withdraw as a serious mistake and warned it could lead to another war in the Middle East. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded by saying Iran would continue to abide by the agreement and would not renew its nuclear program for now.

For more, we speak with Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council. His most recent book is titled “Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.” We also speak with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink. Her latest book is titled “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” She is also the author of “Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.”

President Trump announced Tuesday he is pulling the United States out of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, brokered by his predecessor, President Obama. That same day, Trump’s new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to North Korea to finalize plans for President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to hold a landmark face-to-face meeting. For more on President Trump, the Iran nuclear deal and efforts to avoid nuclear proliferation and nuclear war, we speak with Media Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, author of “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” She has also participated in the peace delegation to North Korea, Women Cross DMZ.

The US’s EU allies were left scrambling to keep the Iran nuclear deal intact amid fears of a new confrontation in the region following Mr Trump’s announcement lastnight. The deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain with Iran in 2015.

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German said: “Trump is showing his true colours here as a warmonger, not a peace maker. This is an extremely dangerous development which presages more war, not less, in the region.

“Anti-war campaigners are part of a mass coalition which is organising to protest against Trump’s visit in July and to make sure that he is aware of opposition to his plans.

In the Commons, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made a statement in which he said that he and PM Theresa May had urged Mr Trump over last weekend to not pull out of the pact.

“Britain has no intention of walking away, we will co-operate with other parties”, he added.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said that the “whole house and the world” should stand against Mr Trump for his “senseless and immoral act of diplomatic sabotage.”

She added: “By seeking to scupper the nuclear deal, Donald Trump has destroyed the platform for future progress [for human rights in Iran] and risked triggering a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, handing power to the hard-line theocrats in Tehran and pushing Iran back into isolation.

“He has taken all those risks without a single care, without the slightest justification and without the simplest rational thought as to what will come next.

She said it was particularly important to avoid a descent into more global conflict.

“The idea of Iran racing to develop a nuclear weapon and the US administration seeking to stop them through military means does not bear thinking about … this is exactly what the Trump administration are thinking about,” she continued.

Before the Commons statements on Wednesday, Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said there was a need to de-escalate tensions in the wake of Mr Trump’s warning that he was ready to impose the “highest level” of sanctions on Tehran.

He also acknowledged that Mr Trump’s decision had shown the limits of European influence in Washington.

And Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Mr Trump that Iran could restart enriching uranium “without any limitations” within a matter of weeks.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the risks of a confrontation between Iran and Israel were real with tensions already running high.

He added that he and his British and German counterparts would be meeting with Iranian representatives on Monday to discuss the next steps.

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump made the world a more dangerous place by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, former atomic adviser Mohamed el-Baradei warned today. Former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mr el-Baradei called the decision to withdraw from the agreement “a tantrum and an act of bravado” by Mr Trump: here.

Tuesday’s decision by President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear agreement has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a catastrophic regional conflict that could rapidly draw in the major powers: here.

The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear treaty has revealed deep and explosive divisions between Washington and its imperialist allies in Europe. Governments and major media outlets across Europe were virtually unanimous in condemning Trump’s action, calling for the treaty to be preserved, and vowing to defend their business interests against Trump’s threats to impose the “highest level of economic sanctions against Iran”: here.

US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions.

In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war.

Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising.

As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.”

Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack.

In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors.

His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism”, whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.

As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran”.

Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah.

First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal”, adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.”

Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.”

Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement.

The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime.

No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French [President] E[m]manuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo.

Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry.

The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America.

If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees.

In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran.

This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails.

Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies.

In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal.

On January 16, 2018, the World Socialist Web Site will video livestream a discussion on Internet censorship, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and WSWS International Editorial Board Chairperson David North. WSWS reporter Andre Damon will moderate the discussion. The webinar will explore the political context of the efforts to censor the Internet and abolish net neutrality, examine the pretexts used to justify the suppression of free speech (i.e., “fake news”), and discuss political strategies to defend democratic rights. Hedges and North will also field questions from on-line listeners.

Mehring Books customers who attempt to purchase the pamphlet using PayPal currently receive the following message: “PayPal gateway has rejected request. This transaction cannot be completed because it violates the PayPal User Agreement (#13122: Transaction refused).”

When a Mehring Books representative contacted PayPal’s customer service team on March 27 to inquire about the error, a PayPal representative confirmed that the pamphlet’s sale had been deliberately blocked because “the government has given us certain policies that we have to block transactions.”

It looks like any book having the word ‘Iran’ in it gets censored; probably except for warmongers‘ writings calling for war on Iran.

The staff member’s supervisor stated further, “It is something where we can’t change it. You are not going to be allowed to process [sales of the book], based on compliance reasons.” She said she “can’t provide further information” and that Mehring Books would receive no explanation for the action “except via a subpoena.”

These statements make clear that PayPal is acting as an agent of the United States government to block the sale and distribution of a book. This is an illegal violation of the right to free speech and freedom of expression guaranteed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

PayPal processes more than $300 million in sales transactions every day, or approximately 18 percent of total world e-commerce sales. Its market capitalization is approximately $96.4 billion.

The corporate giant has a long record of using its position to conduct political censorship on behalf of the US state. Most notably, PayPal, along with MasterCard, VISA, American Express, Western Union and Bank of America, collaborated with the Obama administration in 2010 to impose a more than seven-year-long financial blockade on the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, preventing it from receiving donations.

In recent years, PayPal has also blocked the sale of publications and the use of its services by organizations connected to Iran, under the pretext of abiding by the US-led sanctions regime, which has been imposed by the US and European powers with the aim of crippling Iran’s economy and destabilizing its government.

In April 2013, PayPal briefly blocked the sale of a photo book produced by an Italian communications firm, Fabrica, containing a collection of images taken by photographers in Tehran from inside their homes. PayPal staff stated at the time that the book had been automatically banned because its title contained the blacklisted word “Iranian.”

In that case the ban was removed within two days. PayPal issued a public apology via technology blog Gigaom, claiming that the ban was a mistake and noting that PayPal’s adherence to US economic sanctions was “never intended to apply to books or written materials and we have worked to ensure that books are not impacted by our compliance with this policy.”

The WSWS demands that PayPal end its illegal financial ban on The Struggle Against Imperialism and for Workers’ Power in Iran, and that it explain the basis upon which the decision to block the book was made.

US President Donald Trump last week published a series of tweets denouncing the Iranian government’s crackdown on protests against austerity and social inequality that shook the bourgeois-clerical regime. The protests, which heralded the entry of the Iranian working class into struggle against the right-wing nationalist regime, left over 20 dead in clashes with government forces and hundreds more arrested.

Trump began a day after the first protests, calling on the Iranian government to “respect their people’s rights, including right to express themselves. The world is watching!”

Having done his best to starve the Iranian population by means of economic sanctions, repeatedly threatened it with war, and banned Iranians from entering the US, Trump offered crocodile tears to the “great Iranian people,” who “have little food, big inflation and no human rights.”

Over the ensuing days, he issued a barrage of tweets decrying “human rights violations” by the regime, at one point criticizing it because it had “closed down the Internet so that peaceful demonstrators cannot communicate”. Last Wednesday, Trump tweeted a veiled threat of direct US intervention, promising the Iranian people, “You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!”

As a historically oppressed country, Iran must be defended against imperialist bullying and aggression. This does not, however, imply any political support for the Iranian government, which is a capitalist regime representing the interests of the clerical establishment, the bazaar merchants and big business. Behind the smokescreen of anti-US rhetoric it carries out a policy of brutal austerity against the working class while seeking to curry the favor of European imperialism by opening up Iran to foreign investment and exploitation. The task of settling accounts with the regime and the Iranian bourgeoisie as a whole is that of the Iranian working class, not US imperialism and its reactionary allies in the region such as Israel and the Gulf monarchies.

Washington DC police “kettled” protesters, employed indiscriminate violence and arrested hundreds. They fired on the crowd with chemical agents, pepper spray, rubber bullets and crowd control grenades. Protesters claim the police sexually assaulted detainees. An American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit currently underway against the DC police alleges that officers knocked a ten-year-old boy to the ground and pepper-sprayed his mother.

A document obtained by Democracy In Crisis and The Real News Network through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that police deployed weapons on at least 191 occasions over the course of the day. Police fired 74 sting ball grenades, a type of “non-lethal” explosive that ejects rubber balls in a radius surrounding the device’s point of impact. A total of 230 people were arrested.

The police crackdown occurred under the purview of the outgoing Obama administration, and the new Trump administration wasted no time attempting to make an example of the protesters. Prosecutors initially charged 214 of the arrested with “felony rioting,” a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. In April, a grand jury issued additional charges.

So far, 20 people have pleaded guilty. The first round of trials involving six defendants collapsed late last year, with the jury acquitting all of the defendants. One hundred and eighty-eight defendants still await trial, many facing up to 50 years in prison.

Under Trump, every effort has been made to stack the courts against the accused. DC Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz, chosen to oversee the trials, has a long anti-protestor record and is notorious for her authoritarian views. The prosecution has made clear it intends to seek the maximum sentence for any and all defendants who are convicted.

The prosecution is basing itself on the concept of collective punishment: anyone present at the Disrupt J20 protest is criminally liable. In the words of Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff, “A person can be convicted of rioting without breaking a window. It is the group who is the danger, the group who is providing the elements.”

This case, made by the prosecution with Trump’s blessing, stands in direct violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The government’s case is also in violation of international law. The concept of collective punishment is characterized as a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention.

The first round of trials underscored the alliance of the police with fascistic elements. The prosecution presented doctored video footage from known far-right extremist groups such as Project Veritas and the Oath Keepers militia. It also has become clear that police infiltrators attended Disrupt J20 meetings prior to the day of the protest. Investigators have since begun spying on social media accounts of individuals who “liked,” interacted with, or even visited the Disrupt J20 Facebook page.

Were such a travesty of democracy to occur in Iran, North Korea, Russia or China, Trump and the mainstream press would be quick to denounce it in the harshest terms.

In July of last year, Trump told police and immigration agents in Long Island, New York that he loved watching criminal suspects “get thrown into the back of a paddy wagon”. He urged them to rough up people being detained, saying, “Please don’t be too nice.”

Equally hypocritical is Trump’s feigning sympathy for the plight of the Iranian working class. The demonstrations in Iran stem from working class anger over the rising cost of living, mass unemployment, austerity measures, deepening social inequality and political repression. These are the same basic problems, exacerbated by Trump’s massive tax cut for the rich and deregulation of big business, confronting the American working class.

COMMUNIST and workers’ parties have declared solidarity with the Iranian people who are facing brutal repression after taking to the streets against the theocratic government: here.

President Donald Trump, who recently said he would announce the “MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR,” has been awarded the title of the world’s most oppressive leader toward press freedom by the Committee to Protect Journalists: here.